Lights Out London
by forestwife
Summary: 21st June, longest day of the year. Turn off your lights for an hour and send a message to the world. The Doctor and Martha observe the city of London in the dark. Drabble.


Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, and 'Lights Out London' was the genius idea of Capital radio.

21st June, longest day of the year. Turn off your lights for an hour and send a message to the world. The Doctor and Martha observe the city of London in the dark. Drabble.

Lights Out London

"I cannot stress enough," the Doctor said, "You humans are absolutely _amazing_."

Martha looked up at the Time Lord stood next to her, and wondered just what made him tick. The things he found amazing would overflow the biggest book ever written (which as the Doctor told her, was very big), and they covered a huge variety of things too.

He loved the extraordinary things like the sight of a start going into a supernova, the spires of futuristic cities and massive natural phenomena, but he also loved the ordinary things. He loved chips, bananas, marmalade and those little edible ball-bearing things you decorate cakes with.

But what amazed Martha the most was that of all the things in the universe, all the different species, the Doctor thought that _humans_ were amazing.

There were times when Martha would have laughed at him for saying that. Humans could be selfish, cruel and vindictive. As nations they would go to war, kill each other and commit atrocities for the most illogical reasons.

And yet, at times she could also see what he meant. People could also be kind, giving and selfless. And when they came together, they could do the most wonderful things.

This, she had to say, looking out over London, was one such thing.

When the Doctor had told her he was taking her to see something spectacular, Martha had never expected to be taken somewhere so close to home. But here she was; 9.30pm, Thursday June 21st 2007, London. And there was no doubt that what she was seeing was definitely spectacular.

London was almost completely dark. All the famous buildings that were usually lit up for all to see were pitch black.

"What's going on?" she asked the Doctor. She was a bit out of the loop these days with things regarding current events.

"This," the Doctor explained, looking completely over the moon, "is the people of London coming together to take on climate change. It was organised by one radio station, and by the looks of it, more or less everyone signed up! Basically the idea is that for just one hour, everyone turns off all unnecessary lights. Now that is an _enormous_ amount of energy being saved."

Martha looked out over the dark city. "It's amazing."

"That's what I said!" the Doctor agreed, grinning down at her. "The brilliant part is that everyone's involved! The Queen at Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, the gherkin, Downing street, even the Torchwood Institute," he added, pointing at the darkened building of canary wharf. "The London eye, and Picadilly circus have turned off their lights for the first time since world war two!"

Martha just stared in amazement. This had to be the first time she'd ever seen London without lights, barring powercuts.

"It's brilliant what you humans can do when you put your minds to it, isn't it?" the Doctor murmured in her ear. Then he said cheerfully, "Come on."

"Can't we stay for a while?" Martha pleaded.

"Course we can," the Doctor replied, seemingly amazed that she'd even thought otherwise, "I just thought we'd go and joint the candlelit festivities."

So Martha hurried to join the Doctor, and they went down to join the people of the city

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A/N: Wrote this during the Lights out London hour (or half of it anyway). It's not particularly amazing or meaningful (probably lots of typos), but the message behind it is – everyone can make a difference –when you leave a room, turn off the light! Don't leave your TV on standby! Don't leave your computer on all night! We've all got to live in this world y'know! So, who else turned out their lights? I did!

Please review!


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